John Tyler, The Accidental President

John Tyler, The Accidental President by Edward P. Crapol

Having a bucket list to read at least one biography of every U.S. President can be a bit challenging when you get to one of the lesser known, obscure leaders.  There is an “American Presidents” series that covers all presidents, so if you get desperate, you can turn there. ‘Desperate’ may be too harsh a word. They’re not that bad, just a tad brief.

I was happy to see that there was a ‘legitimate’ book on John Tyler, the nation’s 10^th president, but once I was into it, I realized it wasn’t, in the strictest sense, a ‘biography’.  This is one of those books about a historical figure that mainly covers a certain portion of their life. In this case, it focuses mainly on the time when John Tyler became president. More specifically, when he became the country’s very first ‘accidental’ president. John Tyler had the distinction of being the very first vice-president to take over as commander-in-chief when the current President died in office.

The president who died was William Henry Harrison who has the record of smallest tenure ever as president. He lasted one month. So John Tyler basically gets a full term handed to him. It was interesting to read that since the country was still rather young, no one was quite sure how the transition would occur, and even if it would occur at all. But, as history as shown us time and time again, the good ol’ U.S. of A. always handles these incidents without too much turmoil.

Sadly, John Tyler is the very first president who I can safely say, after reading this book, that I did not like. That sentiment seemed to be shared by many. Many have accused the author of slinging a bit too much mud, but I found his observations to be quite balanced. He gives credit in the rare instances where credit is due, but for the most part, we’re left not liking the man.

It seems as though 75% of this book talks about the issue of slavery. That itself shouldn’t be much of a shock since it was a very hot issue at the time (1840). It seems as though we read about it in too much detail. Tyler was pro-slavery. Like many pro-slavery people, he seemed to wrestle with the fact that even though the institution could be cruel, he felt it somewhat necessary for the country to maintain an economic advantage even at a high cost.  Hindsight shows how misguided such individuals were.

Although the author treats his subject fairly, he does seem to have some limitations in his writing. One example: He can’t seem to refer to ‘slavery’ as ‘slavery’.  He refers to it again and again and again as “The South’s peculiar institution”.  I swear I must have read those four words about 75 times within these pages. I imagine an English Teacher would have knocked his grade down a letter for this infraction. 

Another example: John Tyler was a big fan of expanding the boundaries of the United States, as were as predecessors James Madison and James Monroe.  So EVERY time the author brings up Tyler’s expansionist tendencies, he throws the names ‘James Madison’ and ‘James Monroe’ in the sentence. Didn’t this author have an editor??  So, yes, such infractions did become cumbersome after a while.

Because Tyler was an expansionist, he played a key pivotal role in the eventual annexation of what is now the State of Texas. This is looked at as one of his more memorable and favorable achievements, yet we’re led to believe that Tyler’s main motive for Texas was to, again, expand slavery.

Then we learn that Tyler has the infamous distinction of being the only ‘traitor’ in the nation’s history several years after he left office. When the southern states seceded from the Union that led to the Civil war in 1861, Tyler was hollering and screaming right along with them. Although Tyler dies in 1862, he became one of the key figures in the renegade government. Again, one must be careful when judging history. I believe, for example, that had Thomas Jefferson been alive, he probably would have done the same thing.

Since Tyler died a traitor, much of his estate and memoirs were ransacked and burned, meaning that we don’t know as much about the man as we probably wish. This might be the reason why the author doesn’t provide us much about his upbringing, his romances, or anything about his personal life.  This means that this book is shorter than most, but it still should have been shorter. Again, the author is a bit too long-winded in some areas. It also doesn’t help that the entire retrospective is divided into only about eight chapters, which doesn’t give the reader much time to breathe.

Still, though, I learned an awful lot about the man, which leads me to conclude that although this book had many shortcomings, I would still recommend for someone wanting to learn about John Tyler.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Beneath a Scarlet Sky – by Mark Sullivan

“But the world’s focused on France, and forgotten Italy.”

It sounds like a crass thing to say, but wars do bring out some great stories. There’s something about a combination of tragedy, espionage, romance, late-night bombing raids, and the overwhelming fear of death that has given many a writer great ideas for tales. This book is actually based on a true story. What makes it somewhat more appealing is that the story takes place in Italy. What other World War II  stories do you know that have taken place in Italy?  Not many. What exactly was Italy’s role in World War II anyway?  Weren’t they one of the three ‘bad guys’ headed by the unstable fascist Il Duce (Benito Mussolini)? 

True, but by 1942, Italy was already ‘conquered’ and the majority fled their lukewarm allegiance towards Hitler and the axis and then turned towards the allies.  By 1944, when this story starts, the country, however, was filled with black-shirt fascists who never turned, as well as German Gestapo agents everywhere.  It’s in this environment that we meet our protagonist, 17-year-old Pino Lela. Like most boys 17 thrown in a middle of war, he’s obviously having to grow up quite fast. All he wants to really do is find a girl and fall in love. He makes an attempt to woo a stranger on a street – beautiful 23-year-old Anna – who halfheartedly agrees to meet him at the cinema later in the evening. It’s quite obvious she’s just trying to get rid of this testosterone filled adolescent and move on with whatever she’s doing.

It’s a good thing she stands him up, as the theater is bombed during a night raid. Pino finds himself thrust into the war at this point. It’s high time for him to do something to help the cause. We then see Pino recruited for a couple of dangerous missions that basically take up the bulk of the book. His adventures aren’t really connected, but it’s still quite the adventure.  Of course, every few pages, we read about his fascination with Anna – the girl he met for a total of about two minutes. He can’t stop thinking about her. Well, this IS a somewhat true story, but when we read about Anna so often, it’s obvious that she’s bound to show up again in our story.

So, yes, our war tale contains a fair bit of romance along with tragedy. To be frank, the tragedy and travails of a world war seem a bit toned down in this book. My guess is the author didn’t want to gross out any of his readers. So even though we read about citizens being murdered by firing squads, forced slavery, and trains filled with Jews heading to Auschwitz, I never really felt the pain and remorse that I think I should have felt. Pino seemed a tad too lovestruck throughout the pages for his surroundings to ever appear too grim.  The book seemed ‘PG’ rated when I felt it should have been a hard ‘R’ for the emotions to really sink in as they should.

I also felt that had this NOT been a true story, I would have enjoyed the last quarter of the book better. We must remember that real life doesn’t always give us stories the way we wish they would be told, so I need to give the author a ‘pass’ when certain events didn’t happen the way that I was hoping they would.

Truth be told, the story is told very well, so one can easily forget that we’re reading about a true account. The very end of the book does a good job summing up the ‘Where are they now?” portion of the main figures that survived the tragedy.  Again – some unanswered questions and some events unfolding a bit differently than one would want. As I write this review, the book is supposedly being made into a mini-series.  I’m thinking it will be a good one. It’s definitely a bit too varied to be summed up into one nice, neat movie.  Somehow, I’m guessing the nastier elements of the war will be toned down as well. I guess that’s probably a good thing – if that’s what most people want.

The Target

The Target – David Baldacci

The third Will Robie book. I read the first, and seem to recall enjoying it.  Having skipped the second, I now wish I would have read that one before picking this one up.  There are too many references to that story here, and I feel as though the details were so detailed in places, that it essentially spoiled the reading if I ever did decide to pick up #2.  

That fact aside, I still really didn’t enjoy this book that much.  This, sadly, tends to be a pattern for me with Baldacci. He seems good coming up with ‘big’ plots, but when he’s forced to write about detail, such as two people talking to each other, his weaknesses are really apparent.  There’s just too much here that is contrived, forced, and unbelievable.

Robie is a tough, macho CIA agent that is assigned top level clandestine missions for only the very best.  Apparently, he became entangled with co-agent Jessica Reel in the second book. She’s just as good as Robie, but being female, she seems to have a rather large chip on her shoulder and seems to swagger her machismo a bit much. In fact, this book seemed to be more about her than Robie. Apparently in Book 2, the two “did the right thing” but didn’t “follow orders” on a crucial mission. So now the CIA wants to get rid of them (i.e. kill them), but the duo is too high profile and too good, so the CIA has to suck up their bravado and put up with these two misfits.  Again, the dialogue between all parties is pretty stupid.

Anyway, the main story here is pretty decent. Robie and Reel are initially called in to help orchestrate a coup in North Korea, but things go a bit wrong, tables are turned and some of the particulars get changed. We then focus on a female North Korean agent who’s being recruited to retaliate against the Americans.  Her story is pretty interesting, and I found the chapters detailing her plight to be the most entertaining.  Had Baldacci focused on this aspect throughout the whole book, it could have been a much more satisfying read.

Well, I’m guessing that when Baldacci finished this story, he only had about 275 out of the required (?) 400 pages written. Since he couldn’t milk the story any more, he basically inserts a second story within these pages that is completely unnecessary, stupid, and contrived (why do I always use that word when reviewing Baldacci?). This subplot involves a dying old prisoner on death row, some fanatical Neo-Nazis, and Jessica Reel’s past.  This portion of the book should have been left in the garbage.  It’s completely stupid and unnecessary. There really isn’t anything wrong with a 275-page book, you know. Less would have definitely been more in this case.

Even the ‘main’ story had some issues of unbelievability.  At one point, Robie and Reel have to infiltrate a prison camp in the heart of North Korea. The way Balcacci describes the event, it seems about as difficult as driving on the freeway during rush hour. The whole incident takes up about half a chapter.  This could have been fleshed out more and made the story much more enjoyable.

Often when a person dislikes a book by an author they enjoy, they’ll state things in reviews such as “I’m convinced that (this author) had nothing to do with this book! It must have been ghost written by someone else!”  Well, sadly, I’ve read a lot of subpar books by Baldacci to know that the things that made this book somewhat unenjoyable have also been present in some of his other clunkers. In fact, I really think he SHOULD try co-writing with someone else. Someone who can write simple, believable scenes - like when two characters have a conversation with each other.